Turkey Inventory Squeezed as Shoppers Look Toward Thanksgiving

Smith: As the weather turns cooler across the U.S., many shoppers are beginning to plan holiday meals. American Farm Bureau Federation Economist Bernt Nelson says USDA's latest Turkeys Raised Report gives us some important insight on the size of the U.S. flock ahead of Thanksgiving.

Nelson: Now this number came in estimated at 195 million turkeys raised in 2025. This is down about three percent from 200 million turkeys raised in 2024. Now, if we look a little bit further back, this is down 16 percent from about 10 years ago, and 35 percent from the peak of the report, which had about 301 million turkeys being raised in 1996.

Smith: He said turkey farmers saw some good news on the HPAI front throughout the last few months, but the situation is starting to change.

Nelson: We had very few detections throughout the summer. If you looked at June, there was just a couple detections, none in July, and just a couple in August to kind of round out the month. But now, as we've gotten into September, cases have started to pick back up again. There have been 15 additional detections in September. This has affected about three-and-three-quarter million birds.

Smith: Nelson says there is some good news, though, as turkeys for Thanksgiving are already in the pipeline and shouldn't see much impact due to the rising number of avian influenza cases.

Nelson: It shouldn't have a major impact going forward on the prices as we get closer to Thanksgiving. I think you'll see a little bit more consistency. The prices are definitely higher than last year. We see that uptick right now in the wholesale price by about 40 percent, so we'll definitely see some price increases there, but I don't think they're going to go a whole lot higher above where they are at.

Smith: Chad Smith, Washington.